Sorry about your Griffins. lleechef is still happy about her Penguins beating my Blue Jackets a couple of days ago, but we're going to a Pirates-Giants game in Pittsburgh on Wednesday so I'll get even with her Pittsburgh love.

Yeah, saw that game, I'm sorry. I get it...my Wings got knocked out, too. The Griffins are still in it; best of 5 for the first round and we're up 2-1 in the series. Tonight should do it, but on the off chance it doesn't Game 5 will be tomorrow here at home. The only upside to being off work is I get to actually attend games with a ticket instead of having to work.

Mar, Hey, that good looking picture of your dinner from the freezer -- was the ham frozen too? Do you think there is anything different to frozen ham vs unfrozen?

Why I ask is a long time ago it seemed to me that ham from the freezer was not as good as when it went in. It seemed to have a moisture layer of some kind, a more slippery feel, when it came out. Which we didn't find with other meats.

And, maybe, probably, old memory, it seemed somewhat drier than before -- not at all sure about that.

Had no idea what it was, just washed it off and wiped down, then later I read in one of Harold McGee's books about ham having "freezer drip," moistures that migrate from inside the cells out to the surface.

I avoided freezing it since then, which has sometimes meant we have that "eternity" that Joy of Cooking talked about -- but we love it, so it's okay.

Do you notice anything like Harold's drip?

I did just a very little googling, but it seems like frozen ham is common, and no one offended by the result.

I've gotten used to freezing just about anything because I'm single and any type of meat becomes an eternity and will spoil in the end. It seems to me that ham quality does go down a little. My experience is that if I cook the ham first there is less icing. Your info is interesting. That may explain why I get so much ice even though I try not to freeze foods while they are still warm. I usually just eat the ham in sandwiches and salads so I couldn't say how it would come out if cooked again in a casserole or something.

The ham tasted great but I prepared it a little differently. I layered it in a skillet with a little bit of water to add moisture back in to it. I left a space in the middle of the pan and added the drained can of green beans and let the water cook almost out.

Not dry at all and the flavor was still there and also flavored the green beans.

I freeze cooked ham all the time, but almost always it ends up in soup. I tend to defrost it in the refrigerator, then just dump it into my soup pot directly from the bag without touching it, so I've never noticed any excess moisture. I've never frozen raw ham, only the leftovers and the bone.

Today I was recovering from a bit of excess celebration after the Griffins won last night (waiting to find out who we play in the next round until after this weekend's games are settled). At any rate, my head hurt and I wasn't up for cooking, so I threw some chicken in the crock pot and made a mushroom-wine sauce for it. Served it over brown rice with a bag salad on the side and called it good.

Thank you! Can't wait to find out of we get Texas or Toronto next. And yeah, that two-buck deal is something we do every Friday game, extended to every home playoff game. Until this season it was $1 beers and hot dogs, but that got too expensive (the team's management reimburses the arena for the difference).

I still haven't had a beer watching a game. It feels wrong, even though I'm not working.

Sunday = trash day. So we had some of the minced collops, some beets, some green beans, and polished off the bag salad and I ate the last bit of some deli macaroni salad.

And my Griffins will be playing Texas. Unfortunately, I probably can't go to either Game 3 or 4 since they happen the night before and the day of my mother's eye surgery. If there's a Game 5 I should be able to make it.

Thanks, MH! It'll be an interesting series for sure. Texas is the best in the AHL this year, and we're defending the Cup.

Tonight I did some Avocado Basil Chicken (with which I took some liberties from how someone else wrote it), with an avocado-apricot salad on the side. Served with the year's first batch of sweet tea. Totally forgot to take more or better pictures because I was starving; you'll have that.

felix Looks delicious! I'm assuming that avocados were abundant in the markets as they were here, due to Cinco de Mayo! Tonight it's not-so-shabby left-overs of short ribs, garlic mashed and I'll make some steamed asparagus.

I always loved the small cheap chicken pot pies. I made a chicken stock from one of my roosters along with some chicken noodle soup. This is a Chicken pot pie with a home made crust. I found my new comfort food!

What's nice is we always have some dough left over for cinn and sugar baked dough.

lleechef Exactly, avocados were everywhere and really cheap, so we bought a bunch.

Now, normally I would be drooling all over my keyboard looking at a homemade chicken pot pie, but I am overstuffed with Creative Bacon Chili. (Recipe from the Loveless Cafe: http://www.lovelesscafe.c.../creative-bacon-chili/ ) I added some garlic and some VooDoo Bell Pepper seasoning, and used diced tomatoes instead of chopping whole ones, and WOW! This was amazing!

Stopped by a Korean super Market the other day and they were giving out samples of teeny weenies. They were smokey delicious! So I bought a package.

Made Beanie Weenies for dinner.

Those round things with the sesame seeds turned out to be plate decoration as they were not edible. I thought they were candied yams when I bought them. WRONG! Some sort of Korean confection that are nasty sweet.

If found again I'd buy a few more packages of those weenies for the freezer.